False balance: Fox News demands a recount on US’ warmest year

"Is that just math you do as a skeptic to make yourself feel better?"

Back in 2010, a memo leaked from Fox News in which its managing editor informed his staff that they couldn't even report on basic temperature measurements without noting they were subject to controversy in some quarters, even if those quarters are out past the fringes of the scientific community. That directive is apparently still in force. Just days after NOAA released its reading of last year's US temperatures, Fox responded with a report in which it questions whether NOAA is producing accurate temperature readings.

The report is a classic example of what's been termed "false balance." It presents experts with relevant experience and the official word from NOAA, but it simultaneously surrounds them with quotes from several people who aren't scientists—as well as one scientist who is a notable contrarian about other fields of science. In many ways, the self-labelled skeptics contradict each other in their haste to condemn NOAA. But the Fox article doesn't point any of this out, and it actually ends with a veiled hint that we might consider throwing NOAA scientists in jail for their "manipulations of data."

At issue are the historic US temperature records. These are generated from stations maintained by the US government. Over the course of 100-plus years, many of these stations have been moved to new locations or had their equipment replaced. These events create a break in the record. To generate its historical analysis, NOAA has to identify the breaks and perform an analysis that matches up the two end-points, creating a single, continuous record.

Apparently it does a good job. When the Berkeley Earth project examined temperature records, they used a statistical method that didn't repair the breaks. Instead, they treated the two sides of the break as independent temperature records. Yet that team came up with a temperature reconstruction that was nearly identical to ones made using NOAA's data. Since that time, NOAA has gone back and updated their records further, identifying additional breaks that had gone undetected and updating its algorithms to take advantage of advances in computing power. If anything, its current data is even more reliable.

And that's exactly what a NOAA spokesperson told Fox News. Yet the Fox News team felt compelled to go out and find three people who don't believe him or the scientists he represents.

One is a blogger who writes under the name Steve Goddard, who told Fox, "The adjusted data is meaningless garbage. It bears no resemblance to the thermometer data it starts out as." But Goddard doesn't explain why he thinks that's the case, nor why Berkeley Earth came up with similar results when they weren't using some of NOAA's adjustments. And Fox doesn't explain why they're putting NOAA's word up against someone who doesn't study the climate and has only bachelor's degrees in science and engineering. A cursory examination would have also revealed that Goddard has attacked climate researchers before, only to find out his criticisms were completely wrong and based on a trivial error.

The report does include one scientist with some relevant experience, Roy Spencer. But again, Fox does not appear to have done any checking of Spencer's background. Spencer has been known to let his personal views cloud his scientific judgement, as evidenced by his wholehearted support of intelligent design and disbelief of evolution. In the case of environmental issues, he's made his personal views very clear, stating, "I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism." A lot of his climate research isn't well respected by the community, either.

But Spencer is brought out anyway and given a chance to blast NOAA for its adjustments. At least he voiced a specific complaint, saying that urbanization has thrown off the temperature records. Unfortunately, that claim isn't consistent with the available data. People have tracked the impact of urbanization both globally and in the US and found that it doesn't influence the temperature record. The Berkeley Earth project, linked above, also found no influence of urbanization. Yet Spencer is allowed to point the finger at it unchallenged.

The final critic trotted out is meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent skeptic site that is notable for its generally flawed approach to science. Nevertheless, Watts himself was involved with some research that showed that the US' historic temperature record hasn't been unduly influenced by urbanization; ironically, his own stab at science is being dismissed here by Spencer.

And Watts returns the favor. Spencer recognized that some form of adjustment was necessary, but Watts slams any such effort as reinventing history: "Is history malleable? Can temperature data of the past be molded to fit a purpose? It certainly seems to be the case here." His evidence that this is the case? If he provided any to Fox, it wasn't relayed in the article.

What are we to make of this chaotic jumble of unreliable sources and internal contradictions? As far as Fox is concerned, apparently nothing; the article doesn't draw any conclusion about the science whatsoever. It's a classic example of false balance, allowing the reporter to present a biased picture while maintaining the appearance of impartiality. But the reporter does let Watts show his biases when he's given the last word, and he uses it to insinuate that NOAA's scientists should probably be in prison, saying, "In the business and trading world, people go to jail for such manipulations of data."

always remember that faux news won itself a judgment saying that it has a first amendment right to lie, misconstrue, misrepresent, make stuff up and otherwise plumb the depths of the sleaziest mendacity available to the human mind. http://www.librarygrape.com/2009/06/cou ... dment.html

Excellent article. It is frightening that too many don't have enough critical thinking skills to call out false balance when they see it.

when it comes to news, politics, current events, science -- well, anything besides whether the kardashian marriage was a scam -- most people voluntarily gave up their critical thinking skills a long while back.

I'm surprised they're even worthy of an article. Does anyone who reads Ars actually even watch that channel? Heck, I'd bet a significant percentage of us don't bother with TV news at all.

I don't watch TV news, but it is interesting and a bit depressing to read the details of how Fox is attempting to mislead its viewers to pander to their incorrect beliefs and support the Republican agenda.

always remember that faux news won itself a judgment saying that it has a first amendment right to lie, misconstrue, misrepresent, make stuff up and otherwise plumb the depths of the sleaziest mendacity available to the human mind. http://www.librarygrape.com/2009/06/cou ... dment.html

Spelling it "Faux" News is similar to writing "Micro$oft" or calling right-wing voters "Repuglican'ts". You make yourself no better than the people you despise.

Spencer has been known to let his personal views cloud his scientific judgement, as evidenced by his wholehearted support of intelligent design and disbelief of evolution.

Because ad homs are fine so long as we're talking about those kind of people.

It's not an error if you're arguing that an argument from credibility is invalid because the person isn't credible. Which is, I think, what their goal was. Besides, the whole article was about them using witnesses that aren't credible and explaining why they thought they weren't credible.

They also mentioned that he made one specific argument, and then discredited that argument.

always remember that faux news won itself a judgment saying that it has a first amendment right to lie, misconstrue, misrepresent, make stuff up and otherwise plumb the depths of the sleaziest mendacity available to the human mind. http://www.librarygrape.com/2009/06/cou ... dment.html

Spelling it "Faux" News is similar to writing "Micro$oft" or calling right-wing voters "Repuglican'ts". You make yourself no better than the people you despise.

oh, i'm not so sure. i'm making my point with brevity. faux essentially means fake, or false. fox news is a purveyor of misdirection, propaganda and lies. it operates under a veneer of being a "news" organization. ergo, calling them "faux" news conveys the point that i consider them to be purveying fake news.

Funny how people here hate Fox, but interestingly enough, out here in Oregon, they measure snowfall routinely to give us a heads up for drought conditions in the summer. One year, they changed their measurement scheme and measured closer to towns than normal, closer to lots of blacktop/paved areas. They were astonished that the snowfall decreased dramatically - until they later went back and realized that the new areas they choose were warmer than before due to the absorption of heat from the sun - snow doesn't seem to last long on top of roads, compared to grass, right? Took them a while, but now if you question data collection techniques, you're some kind of racist, tea party or conspiracy freak... nobody understands basic statistics and critical thinking anymore.

The subhead -- it was said by the Fox News Election Desk lady (forget her name) on November 6th, to Karl Rove. Fox News had just called Ohio for President Obama, and Karl Rove started sputtering on the air that he had all these statistics on hand that "proved" that Ohio should go to Romney. He actually insisted that the Fox News number-crunchers recheck their figures for Ohio.

This news about 2012 was the hottest year should alarm everybody. It demands that action should be taken. Obama started out with the correct action but has been forces (by Fox News and others) to slow way down what he is trying to do. Now that he has been reelected those who are concerned should contact Obama and their representatives and senators (even they are not convinced about global warming) and demand more action to slow this warming that the earth is in. One of the fastest way to reduce the increase in heating rate would be to enact a carbon tax. Another way is to shut down the coal mines and not allow exports of coal. Still another way to slow down the emission of CO2 would increase the federal taxes (states should also) by doubling the tax the first year and then add the amount of taxes that is charged this year each year after that. Some of the new tax revenues could be use to subsidize the price of electric and other alternative fueled cars. The carbon tax revenues could be use to subsidize electrical power form other sources than coal, natural gas and nuclear.

The subhead -- it was said by the Fox News Election Desk lady (forget her name) on November 6th, to Karl Rove. Fox News had just called Ohio for President Obama, and Karl Rove started sputtering on the air that he had all these statistics on hand that "proved" that Ohio should go to Romney. He actually insisted that the Fox News number-crunchers recheck their figures for Ohio.

reality obviously has a liberal bias. that's why sites like http://www.conservapedia.com/ sprang up - to create a parallel reality where, e.g., wimmins git back in the kitchen, gays git back in the closet (or self-deport, natch) and minorities stop mooching off all them hard-working real amer'kins

Funny how people here hate Fox, but interestingly enough, out here in Oregon, they measure snowfall routinely to give us a heads up for drought conditions in the summer. One year, they changed their measurement scheme and measured closer to towns than normal, closer to lots of blacktop/paved areas. They were astonished that the snowfall decreased dramatically - until they later went back and realized that the new areas they choose were warmer than before due to the absorption of heat from the sun - snow doesn't seem to last long on top of roads, compared to grass, right? Took them a while, but now if you question data collection techniques, you're some kind of racist, tea party or conspiracy freak... nobody understands basic statistics and critical thinking anymore.

There is a difference between FOX the basic local channel, and FOX News which is a cable only channel. One agrees to play shows that whatever company owns FOX (I'm to lazy right now to Google it) makes while still being able to show the local news. FOX News doesn't do temps in the U.S. because of some stupid way of thinking.

If the greater population knew, fundamentally, how science determine the measurements in our universe, then we would be less likely to foster such Gnosticism. Science never claims to know anything with absolute certainty. That claim typically arises from those opposed to some aspect of science, a claim that I feel comes from a lack of understanding about uncertainty and error.

The points these skeptics present are likely true to some extent (urbanization effects, interpolation errors, etc). However, the uncertainty associated with these effects are (or should be) incorporated into the SYSTEMATIC error bars in the NOAA dataset. Fox News is not the forum to discuss potential systematics. The peer review process is designed to address such issues. The peer review process does fail on occasion, but overall does a pretty decent job of scrutinizing the claims of the writers. Even if this measurement was a complete failure of science, within the next few years, we will have more data to scrutinize the claims of NOAA.

The skeptical press I've seen on last year's USA average temperature seems to have one goal in mind: to lower the average temperature below the previous record. It is possible, but not likely, that last year was not actually a record heat year. Even still, it was very hot year in North America that lacked an ENSO (The very hot 1998 record occurred during a particularly strong ENSO). Claiming that last year wasn't actually the hottest doesn't impact the greater claim of global, anthropomorphic, climate change.

Why doesn't Fox News have guests on arguing against the Higgs discovery? It is possible that the excesses seen at the LHC are some other scalar particle or perhaps caused by systematics. I don't recall any mainstream press questioning the Higgs discovery claims.

I wonder how many of the commenters thus far actually read the article, and how many are just commenting on how they hate Fox.

Not saying that I love Fox News or anything. But after reading through the posts thus far, very few of them are actually about the article.

i read it. i think it's more than fair to point out that garbage "news" like the slanted panel described here is just another day at the races for fox news. when you're dealing with them, the message is as important as the messenger.

The subhead -- it was said by the Fox News Election Desk lady (forget her name) on November 6th, to Karl Rove. Fox News had just called Ohio for President Obama, and Karl Rove started sputtering on the air that he had all these statistics on hand that "proved" that Ohio should go to Romney. He actually insisted that the Fox News number-crunchers recheck their figures for Ohio.

reality obviously has a liberal bias. that's why sites like http://www.conservapedia.com/ sprang up - to create a parallel reality where, e.g., wimmins git back in the kitchen, gays git back in the closet (or self-deport, natch) and minorities stop mooching off all them hard-working real amer'kins

You should have included a warning that what is seen cannot be unseen. I now am thinking of filing a lawsuit for pain and suffering, plus $2.99 for a brain flush.